in April 1964, five lads from Belfast, Northern Ireland, convened to make a mighty sound under a different name from the one they had been using for a couple of years, The Gamblers. Fronted by Van Morrison, Them—made up of Eric Wrixon on keyboards, Barry Harrison on guitar, Alan Henderson on bass, and Ronnie Millings on drums, and named after a science-fiction film about atomic mutant ants—proceeded to do just that.

With a few personnel changes made for one reason or another, they appeared just a year later as one of the winning bands in the New Musical Express annual competition, while one of Morrison’s early compositions, “Gloria,” became a radio hit and even managed to get a few airings on television, even though the suits in those days were famously hostile to rock and roll. Yet, after a couple of years of critical and commercial success, the restless Morrison, who was notably reluctant to acknowledge that he even had an audience, left Them for a solo career. For Morrison, the rest, as they say, is history, while Them soldiered on until 1972 before disbanding.

Here’s Them performing “Gloria” on a French variety show, followed their performance of “Here Comes the Night” at that NME show. Following that is a take on Morrison’s first solo hit, “Brown-Eyed Girl,” from 1967. We close with a two-part interview with Morrison on the CBS show Sunday Morning, one that gives new meaning to the notion of pulling teeth. “I am an introvert in an extrovert business,” Morrison says, “which is a huge, huge problem.” Aye.

By happy circumstance, this week sees the publication of Greil Marcus’s new book When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison. Always interesting, Marcus adds a gloss to Morrison’s remark, writing, “What he lacked in glamour he had up in strangeness—or rather his strangeness made glamour impossible, and at the same time captivated some who felt strange themselves.” Aye again: let the cool kids have their Three Dog Night or, heaven forfend, their Lady Gaga, and leave Van to the rest of us.